Tuesday’s campaign round-up

TUESDAY’S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP…. Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* It’s primary day in Kansas, Michigan, and Missouri. There are plenty of interesting races, including gubernatorial and congressional contests, to keep an eye on.

* Republicans have regained their lead in Gallup’s generic ballot, but as I tried to emphasize two weeks ago when Dems were ahead, the wild, erratic shifts in the poll’s results cast doubts on its reliability.

* The DNC probably won’t have to worry about it until 2016, but superdelegates will continue to have some influence over the presidential nominating process.

* In North Carolina, a new survey from Public Policy Polling shows incumbent Sen. Richard Burr (R) leading Elaine Marshall by just two points, 39% to 37%.

* In the state of Washington, Sen. Patty Murray (D) is running a new ad, targeting Dino Rossi’s (R) Wall Street ties and opposition to new safeguards against financial industry abuses.

* Tom Emmer, the presumptive Republican gubernatorial nominee in Minnesota, is struggling to win over voters with his right-wing worldview. In the latest Star Tribune poll, Emmer trails all of the Democratic candidates in hypothetical match-ups, by margins ranging from 5 to 10 points.

* Speaking of extremists, Republican Ron Johnson, a Senate candidate in Wisconsin, personally paid for “The Bell Curve” author Charles Murray to speak to a local education council this year, despite questions about Murray’s alleged racism.

* If you’re inclined to take Rasmussen polls seriously, Nikki Haley (R) has a fairly big lead in South Carolina’s gubernatorial race, leading state Sen. Vincent Sheheen (D), 49% to 35%.

* And in Florida, one of Rep. Alan Grayson’s (D) Republican opponents argued that the fiery Democratic lawmaker shouldn’t have missed the recent vote on war funding. Kurt Kelly (R) told Fox, “He put our soldiers, our men and women in the military, in harm’s way and, in fact, maybe he wants them to die.”